UPDATE: South Side neighborhood residents unaware of midday shotgun shooting

View full sizeBrittany Lohmiller | MLive.comSaginaw police are investigating the Thursday afternoon shooting of a 28-year-old man outside a house on Douglass between Ortman and Gilmore on the city's South Side. Somebody shot the man once in the stomach with a shotgun, police said.

SAGINAW, MI — Based on what Saginaw police have said, it wasn't discreet; it was bold.

A 28-year-ol man endured a shotgun blast to his stomach outside a home on Douglass between Ortman and Gilmore on the city's South Side in broad daylight, about 1:20 p.m. Thursday, said Saginaw Police Detective Sgt. Joseph Dutoi.

When asked several hours after the shooting, multiple residents who live nearby the shooting scene said they were unaware a shooting had occurred there.

Many said they were not in the area when it occurred.

While working on her car in front of a home on Russell, a woman said she didn't know about the shooting.

At the time of the shooting, she wasn't at her home, but said she did read about its occurrence on Facebook, a social networking website.

Nobody responded to a reporter's knock at a home near where the man was shot.

Lutheran Social Services of Saginaw, 3145 Russell, offers social programs to the public and operates an after-school program. Several adults leaving the facility, which is located about a block south of the shooting scene, said they also had not heard about the shooting.

Saginaw police could not be reached for a condition update on the victim Thursday night, but Dutoi said the man was scheduled to undergo surgery Thursday afternoon.

The victim drove himself to the Ruffin Medical Center, about four blocks
away from where he was shot, where personnel there rendered aid until
emergency personnel arrived, Dutoi said. The victim was taken to a local
hospital where he “immediately was taken into exploratory surgery due
to fluids in his abdomen,” Dutoi said.

Police continued to investigate the matter and hadn't announced an arrest or suspect as of Thursday afternoon.

In the eight weeks since March began, Saginaw police have logged at least one shooting per week. The city's tallied seven homicides — one ruled justifiable self-defense and another involving a state trooper remains under investigation — this year, with nine countywide.